Tokyo Still Top for Michelin, But 2 Restaurants Lose Luster

The new Michelin Guide ‘Tokyo Yokohama Shonan 2013′ goes on sale in Japan on Dec. 1.

Tokyo remains the world’s brightest culinary star, according to its new Michelin guide. But while the Japanese capital still has more three-star restaurants than any other city in the globe, it saw two of its top-tiered establishments lose some of their Michelin-approved luster.

Fifteen restaurants earned three Michelin stars in the French tire group’s 2013 restaurant guide for Tokyo, Yokohama and Shonan, down from 17 the previous year. Araki and Hamadaya — a sushi restaurant and a Japanese restaurant, respectively — were both dropped from the top ranks while no new members were inducted.

This is the first time Tokyo, a Michelin culinary darling since the guide launched in Japan in 2007, has taken a knock on the three-star front.

Hand-wringing aside, it’s unlikely that the demoted Tokyo eateries will feel the sting as sharply as their European and American counterparts. While the guidebook’s star system has earned respect and attention in Japan since its controversial first edition, it doesn’t yet have the sway to make or break restaurants in the same way as it does elsewhere.

Part of it has to do with Japan’s food culture, where high-profile restaurants aren’t necessarily flashy. Many of the country’s top establishments, including Jiro Ono’s Sukiyabashi Jiro, are small and tucked away on a side street or a subterranean level — a subdued counterpoint to the large, opulent dining rooms of three-star restaurants in the West. What’s more, despite being the birthplace of “Iron Chef,” the grandfather of TV cooking competitions that elevate chefs to celebrities, most chefs in Japan still enjoy a relative cloak of anonymity. Japan Real Time has more.